The Opportunity Trap - by Pallavi Banerjee (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book explores how Indian immigrants grapple with experiences of being workers and being people as they migrate with their families to the U.S. for work. Drawing on extensive qualitative data from in-depth interviews, observations, and archival research, this is the first book to compare the work and family lives of two distinct groups of Indian immigrants--male high-tech workers and female nurses. Relocating with their spouses who arrive on H-4 dependent visas, the author unravels the dissonance between the state's perception of the migrant skilled worker and the immigrant subject's tribulations when negotiating the contradictory expectation of being ideal citizens/ workers/families without having the security of permanence in the U.S. The author also shows how restricting the spouses of temporary workers, who are on dependent visas in the U.S., from working for pay, constrain and fracture individuals and their families leaving many to refer to the dependent visas as "vegetable visas" and "prison visas." This book reveals how visas policies strip women and men of basic rights within the home, at the workplace, and in civil society by creating gendered and racialized structures of dependence comprising the state, work organizations, transnational global processes, and migrant workers and their families. Visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral, in fact, have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses. Those whose worlds are tied to these visas struggle to negotiate their lives as they are legally governed by what Banerjee calls a visa regime embedded in a gendered and racialized system of oppression."--

Book Synopsis

Winner, 2024 Global Sociology Book Award, given by the Canadian Sociological Association

Winner of the 2024 Silver Medal for the Canada West Non-Fiction category, given by The Independent Publisher Book Award

Winner of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America's Book Award on Asian America

Honorable Mention, 2024 Social Science Category Book Awards, given by the Association for Asian American Studies

Honorable Mention, 2022 Betty and McClung Lee Book Award, given by the Association for Humanist Sociology

Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and families

The Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families --families of male high-tech workers and female nurses--Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses.

Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize--if not completely dismantle--families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress.

Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.

Review Quotes

"The in-depth interviews, intimate engagement, and reflexivity throughout the text are evidence of methodological rigor that provides a text that will be great for any graduate or undergraduate course on migration, family, work, and public policy."-- "International Migration Review"

"In addition to introducing a new intersectional parenting approach, Banerjee invites family scholars to further investigate a powerful theme: unpacking the privileges that stem from pre-migration class location of families in the midst of oppressive conditions fueled by the U.S. visa regime."-- "Journal of Family Studies"

"The Opportunity Trap offers a nuanced understanding of the outdated and unequal visa system in the US. Banerjee's research centers the people who struggle through the visa regime, making the majority of the book accessible to general audiences. The book's rich theoretical contributions are ideal for immigration and gender studies courses, and Banerjee's practical recommendations to reform visa laws makes The Opportunity Trap a digestible and crucial reading for visa policymakers, activists, and other political workers."-- "Journal of Asian American Studies"

"Taken together, the focus on gender and its interactions with other intersectional aspects of Indian migrant life in the United States--along with the emphasis on the experiences of dependent visa-holding spouses--makes The Opportunity Trap a valuable contribution to the field of migration studies...this is a book I strongly recommend to scholars working on migration, South Asian diasporas, and related fields."-- "Industrial and Labor Relations Review"

"The Opportunity Trap delivers the kind of multi-scalar analysis that development scholars treasure. In the tradition of feminist global ethnography, Banerjee interrogates the making of the self, the worker, the nation and the institutions that knit them together... This book will be invaluable for undergraduate courses on globalization, gender, families, immigration and development in Asia."-- "The Journal of Development Studies"

"Banerjee brings the reader into the private lives of these families as they negotiate belonging in a country that both constrains and enables their upward mobility and happiness... Employers, management, undergraduate students, or populations impacted by the visa regime would benefit from reading Banerjee's book. This book would be a great addition to gender and migration studies courses."-- "Canadian Ethnic Studies"

"A thoughtful, compassionate, and richly detailed study of the lived experiences of racialized, high-skilled migrant families in the United States. Banerjee vividly describes everyday people's struggles and failures to affirm their personal dignity and build a good life under such conditions. Rigorous, heartfelt, and intersectional, The Opportunity Trap is an important contribution."--Neda Maghbouleh "Labour / Le Travail"

"Coherent and persuasive. The Opportunity Trap contributes heavily to the scholarship of intersectionality entailing gender, race, ethnicity, class, immigration, and work, as well as to the study of work and family issues. I highly recommend this book for any undergraduate or graduate course on gender or work, or anyone interested in teaching immigration and work from an intersectional perspective."-- "Work and Occupations"

"The Opportunity Trap presents a meticulous sketch of the poignant and constrained lives of high-skilled Indian migrants and their families in the United States. Banerjee skillfully illustrates how forced dependency intersects with the social, cultural, and economic perceptions of masculinity. [The Opportunity Trap] opens several new directions for policymakers, scholars, and activists working on gender, labor, and migration."-- "Gender & Society"

"Pallavi Banerjee's The Opportunity Trap offers a fascinating window into the intimate relationship between migration visas and the work/family lives of skilled migrants and their spousal dependents."-- "Social Forces"

"

Powerful and vivid, The Opportunity Trap tells us of the pains wrought by legal dependency on temporary visa workers and their spouses. Both are suspended and indentured by law. This gender comparative study of hi-tech workers and nurses is a must read as it advances our understanding of immigration, the family, and law in the United States.

"--Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, author of Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States

"Through her insightful analyses of how dependent visas reflect a gendered and racialized regime that controls immigrant families, Banerjee brilliantly identifies the many contradictions faced by Indian migrant workers and their families in the U.S. The Opportunity Trap beautifully captures how the visa regime devalues and makes invisible those on dependent visas, reworks gender relations and parenting within the household, while also making families excessively beholden to migrant workers' employers. This is an important book that should be widely read. "--Joya Misra, co-author of Walking Mannequins: How Race and Gender Inequalities Shape Retail Clothing Work

About the Author

Pallavi Banerjee is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Calgary. She directs the Critical Gender, Intersectionality and Migration Research Group at the University of Calgary, and her research is supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).